Closure
by aussie-chick-13
Summary: Six years ago I ran away from home.  Now, I know what you're thinking. Maybe I was left out one too many times or had aspirations that my parents just didn't get. But I like to think it wasn't that at all. one shot, alan centric, AU please R&R


_Random outshot YAY_

_So I do have some of the next chapter of Just A Kid written but I've kinda hit a roadblock and I can't decide where I want the story to go at the moment. But I am trying to work on in. _

_So in attempt to alleviate my insane writer's block I typed this up_

_Don't know if it actually helped or not :/_

_This is very much AU_

_Anyways, as always reviews are love_

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><p>Six years ago I ran away from home.<p>

Now, I know what you're thinking. Maybe I was left out one too many times or had aspirations that my parents just didn't get. Maybe I felt stifled or alone. Maybe I had siblings that got too much attention and didn't pay enough to me.

But I like to think it wasn't that at all.

My father had a dream. And this dream, it was insidious; it crept into our lives like a virus. Hidden away, slowly eating at us. Inserting itself into not just my dad's life but mine and my brothers' as well. We didn't know it at first. Didn't realise what possibilities this presented, what events would come to pass if we let this dream grow.

I wish that we, that I had seen it coming. Stopped it before it could spread.

You see, dreams, ideas, possibility. These are things that can't be destroyed, cast away. Dreams are impossible to banish, oh you can slow the spread. Freeze the growth. Fight a dream with logic and reason and you will hinder it. But like any bacteria, any virus, the more you treat it. The more resistant it comes.

The harder it is to kill.

Show a dream a problem and it will find a solution.

Show a dream rationality and it will give you spontaneous creation.

Show a dream impossibility and it will give you endless, infinite, constant possibility.

Show a dream logic and it will walk over you, your life and everything you care about.

My dad's dream, it took over our lives. And you have to understand, this dream, this mad idea. It was fuelled by the all-encompassing desire my father, and brothers, had to make my mother's death mean something. They felt like she died for nothing, but if they could get this idea off the ground, figuratively and literally, then it would be worth it in some way.

Seeing as my mum died to save me, I think it's fair that I didn't have the same desire shared by the rest of my family. But that just set me further apart from them.

I'd always been the kid of the family. The tag along, the one that my brothers didn't want to come with them to the pickup games. I wasn't spectacular at music, sport or academics. I had no want to serve in the armed forces or be a doctor or an astronaut or an Olympian. My desires more domestic, I suppose, than my brothers and I guess that put me lower in the eyes of my father than them.

I knew that he wanted me to part of the team. Part of the dream, the idea. But I couldn't face it.

I finished high school a month before my eighteenth birthday and that was the day everything changed for me.

My father had made himself clear on his ideas for my future, and I suppose I am partly to blame for this as well, I let him believe that I was okay with it all. I mean, I don't think he would have listened to me anyway but I do feel like I could've done more. Tried harder. But that's in the past now, no use obsessing over it.

I wanted to be a teacher. And I wanted to work in the social service system, with troubled kids. Orphans. I wanted to make a difference to kids that felt like they were nothing. Because even though I grew up with a father and four brothers, I knew what that felt like.

My dad didn't share my views, I, of course, didn't tell him the second part if you were wondering. To say he was disappointed in me would be an understatement. But if it were possible I was more disappointed in him.

When you're a kid, you have that feeling that your dad is the most amazing person in the world. He's better than any superhero and you feel like with just his support, you could do anything you wanted.

The look on my father's face when I told him I wanted to be a primary school teacher tore that fantasy to shreds and then just for fun decided to set it on fire and bury it six feet under.

I know this makes my dad seem like a horrible person, but just remember what I said about dreams before.

I'm not too proud of what I did next.

I ran.

Yeah, I'm not going to lie. I ran from my problems and like a child hoped that they would go away. I crashed with friends I could trust and scabbed more food and money than I like to admit. Though I did pay it all back eventually. Four weeks I stayed underground and out of sight. I knew my father would be looking for me and I did, and still do, feel horrible for what I must have put him and my brothers through. But for once I needed to put myself first, step out of the shadows and have the courage to stand up.

Three days after my eighteenth birthday I went to a legal branch I knew that specialised in discretion and giving people a new start in life. I changed my name, moved to a different state and by some insane stroke of luck got accepted into a top college where I could study teaching and psychology.

Five years later I graduated with a bachelor of psychology majoring in childhood trauma and a bachelor of teaching six to twelve year olds. I got a job in a local school and worked part time as a counsellor in an orphanage. Six months later I became a foster parent at another kids's home and in the last five months I've found permanent homes for eleven out of the twelve kids that have stayed with me. Number twelve is currently wolfing down an afterschool snack before heading out to baseball training. He plays first base in the neighbour under ten's team.

So like I said, six years ago I ran away from home.

I ran away from a dream to find my own.

And despite the troubles I've caused myself and others, I don't regret it. I found a life that I love. I help people. I heal people.

I miss my old family but sometimes we just need a new start.

Sincerly,

Alan Taber

Ps.

Scooter I nicked your Harvard jumper before I left.

Sorry bout that.

~/~/~/~

Alan read through his piece once more before sending it to his agent. By tomorrow this article would be in ten different papers across three states. One of which would make its way to his father's office. Alan smiled sadly, maybe now they would understand. Maybe it would give them some closure. He stared out the window for several minutes until a light tugging on his shirtsleeve brought him back to reality. Alan looked down into a pair of bright green eyes half hidden under a mop of blonde hair.

"Come on, Alan we're gonna be late!" the young boy said, sounding genuinely concerned. Alan glanced at the clock and grinned, they had plenty of time to get to Tyler's baseball training. Alan was glad that the boy was accepting the normality that the sport gave his life.

"Okay then mate, let's go," As Alan shut his laptop, grabbed his keys, phone and wallet and jogged out the door behind the over-excited eight-year old, hoping that the kid wouldn't trip on the worn-out Harvard jumper that nearly reached his knees, he didn't look back.

He never had.

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><p><em>Well to be honest, as with a lot of my stories that ended nothing like I thought it would<em>

_:]_


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